Commissioners plan discussion on growth effects

Friday, Jan. 30, 2004 | 11:22 a.m.

Facing concerns about the pace of development and use of water and other resources, county officials plan to outline a proposal Monday to chart the future of growth in Clark County.

County Commissioners Mark James, Bruce Woodbury and Rory Reid -- who have expressed concern about the pace of growth and its effect on the urban community -- will announce details of a planned discussion on growth at a news conference on Monday, officials said.

County Manager Thom Reilly said the idea is to bring a diverse group of individuals together to grapple with both the positive and negative effects of Clark County's rapid growth. The commissioners on Monday will "basically talk about why there is a need to have this discussion."

Faced with crises in health care and government ethics, the county in the last year has responded with citizen groups which have met, considered the work of independent consultants and come back with recommendations that the county commission has largely adopted.

Many local residents have said they feel that the shock of growth has reached a crisis point. Water and land resources are stretched thin. High-density residential construction is pushing up against industrial sites and older, spread out ranches. The price of new homes jumped more than 12 percent last year, and yet still set an all-time record of more than 25,000 sold, according to the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association.

Homebuilders Research Inc., a Las Vegas company, has predicted continued strong job growth of 3 or 4 percent in the next year, with job growth of 4 to 5 percent in the construction industry.

The population last July reached 1.62 million in Clark County, according to estimates from the Nevada State Demographer's office. That is more than double the 770,000 population of 1990.

Within a decade, the population will likely rise above 2 million, three times what it was in the mid-1980s, the office is predicting.

Growth has become perhaps the primary issue affecting the county and other local governments, Woodbury said. Growth also is affecting everyone living in the urban area.

"It's on everybody's mind," he said. "You get a wide variety of opinions about growth -- the beneficial effects, the potential harmful effects. It colors and affects everything we do in local government."

Increasingly the county commission and other local governments are referees in disputes over land use, and are confronting an ever-growing need for tremendously expensive infrastructure, he said. Air quality, land availability and the growing concerns over water are regional problems for which local policy makers are seeking solutions.

"It has to do with everything," Woodbury said. "We need a comprehensive review and we need to see what can be done better."

Woodbury added that the announcement Monday would not be to push for a moratorium on all new development, an option that at a minimum would leave about 70,000 local construction workers seeking new jobs.

"We're not announcing anything like that," Woodbury said.

There have been several recent efforts to address growth. State Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, in 1997 proposed adopting a "ring around the valley" that would keep growth within an urban boundary, mimicking a development plan adopted more than 25 years ago. Her plan did not pass the Legislature, but two years later the Legislature produced a plan for a Regional Planning Coalition designed to bring Clark County's governments together to deal with growth and other regional issues.

The new chairwoman of the Regional Planning Coalition is Commissioner Myrna Williams, who said Thursday that the coalition has contributed to the community but is not the best forum for a wide-ranging conversation about growth.

The coalition is best at studying regional problems and suggesting regional solutions to issues such as the rising number of homeless people, availability of health care and even documenting the availability of vacant land in urban areas which can be used for "infill" development, she said.

"The coalition has done some good things," Williams said. But the coalition in itself has no teeth -- it cannot pass policies or ordinances, a power that the county commission does have.

The county needs to address growth issues because it is so directly impacted by the needs of a surging population, she said.

"In the final analysis, we, the county, have to provide all of the regional services," Williams said. "Things that are done in the other jurisdictions really impact us even though we may not have any authority over them."

Social services are provided by the county in the cities. The county also has jurisdiction over air quality. The county also provides the majority of funding for independent agencies such as the Clark County Health District and Metropolitan Police, Williams said.

Williams has been skeptical of those arguing for an end to growth, but she said she supports the dialogue proposed by her three colleagues.

"It's important to have this conversation," Williams said. "I think it's important for people to understand all the implications of growth, for and against. We have to communicate.

"I think it's a lot more complicated than people think."

Hal Rothman, chairman of the history department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, agreed that the discussion would be both complex and needed.

"That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing for the commission to do," he said. He noted that the population boom has gone hand-in-hand with a vibrant economy that other parts of the country envy.

"You've got to look at the economic impact of growth. On the other hand, you've got to look at the things it spawns -- everything from traffic, impact on the environment, the availability of water, everything," Rothman said.

"We became addicted to growth in this valley a while back. The question is not whether or not we're going to grow. The question is whether we are going to put any kind of structure on the process of growth.

"The question becomes -- what kind of valley do we want to live in, and is there a need to change?"

Rothman describes himself as someone who loves the vibrant character of Las Vegas, but a "harsh critic of the lack of structure" has accompanied the growth. Growth now, he said, is threatening the very things that made Las Vegas so successful.

"There are a whole range of things that don't function as well, that are collapsing under the strain of growth," he said.

Rothman warned that unrestrained growth and controls on growth both have their own sets of problems and costs. Restrictions on growth will mean higher housing prices and property taxes, he said, while the cost of services would go up because those providing the services need more income.

Uncontrolled growth means lower housing costs, but greater infrastructure costs due to the need for more roads, schools, police officers and police stations.

Keith Schwer, director of the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research, agrees that measures at both extremes will create problems.

"The middle ground is the toughest way to go, and it is probably the best way to go," he said.

"When communities get above a million in population, they start to run into these difficulties," Schwer said. He said the time to deal with problem engendered by growth is now, while the region has a strong, relatively vital economy.

"When the economy is strong, you have the ability to make these kinds of long term decisions," he said.

Waiting for the bad times that could come if growth issues are ignored is a recipe for much bigger problems, he said.

Rothman agreed.

"The first rule of economics is there's no such thing as a free lunch," Rothman said. "We need as a community to recognize that."

He said a dialogue might or might now provide the answers to the questions residents and policy makers are seeking.

"What I don't know is if anyone can do anything to improve the quality of life," Rothman said. "What I do know is that if we don't do anything, it definitely will affect our quality of life."

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